525600
by MissBonhamCartersPoppet
Summary: Ten-part drabble series, based off prompts from 'Seasons of Love'. Gelphie centric.
1. In Daylights

A/N: This is going to be a ten-part drabble series, based off prompts from the RENT song 'Seasons of Love'._

* * *

_

_In Daylights_

_***_

Galinda Upland knew little about travel or geography, having done neither very often nor very efficiently, but she knew much about sunshine. On days when the parlours of her home had become constricting and claustrophobic, she would feign a headache and excuse herself from company, trudging upstairs to her perfectly decorated bedroom and lock the door behind her. She would make certain that no one was calling after her, then ease open the window of her room and climb quietly down the wall-clinging ivy, her bare feet springy against the lush Gillikin grass. Loosening her clothes and stripping to just a slip, she escaped into the sun-kissed deserted grounds of her home, spending entire afternoons in a haze by a small river just alongside the family vineyard. Head thrown back to catch the sun, a smile offered toward the heavens, she often wished that her 'friends', those poor beings stuck in the parlour, would join her. But for them to see her bare attire, her dirt-stained feet and frizzed hair, would be unacceptable. Just picturing the face of one of the boys her mother every so often brought around, if he were to see her in her current state, made Galinda giggle softly. So she lay, alone and happy in the glaring sunlight, day-dreaming of the days when she would leave her small country town for the excitement of the larger city.

And here she was. Truly alone for the first time in her short life, sharing a train compartment with a snoring Goat, on her way to Shiz! Yet all the excitement and promise she expected to feel was substituted instead with a mere longing for the sunshine outside of the carriage, which shone tauntingly through the dark window, warming her pale face. Today would have been a river day, as she called her secret outings, but instead she was cornered in a train compartment, a stiff black scarf wrapped around her throat and a shimmering white dress hugging her, too hot for the spring day.

Sitting in the tearoom, a rose-patterned saucer and teacup balancing precariously on her knee, she reflected how this felt little different to being stuck in her parlour back home with one of the nervous boys (her mother never did manage to find one who Galinda found an interest in) and one of her silly society friends. There were the high and mighty rich girls, already bunching together for safety from the less rich and therefore less desirable girls, who had entered the University through skill rather than family connections. There were the eager academics, those girls without lipstick or trim on their dresses, who listened intently to every word squelched out by Madame Morrible. There were the outcasts, those who seemed to have ended up in the school quite by accident, as though they had wandered in that morning and decided to stay. And then- a thankful surprise and break from normalcy, there was the solitary girl who sat alone in the back, head bowed and hands folded. From Galinda's viewpoint she looked dark-skinned, but as she leant forward into the light, presumably to catch something said by the carp-like woman, a green tinge appeared on her exposed cheek.

There was no gasp from the blonde girl, no shock or pity. She stared openly at this Elphaba, her newly acquired roommate through a twist of fate Galinda was surprised she resented little, and thought longingly of the green plains of the Gillikin grasslands.


	2. In Sunsets

_In Sunsets_

***

Elphaba had arrived back at the dorm at exactly six forty-five. Stepping into the room, shaded slightly in darkness as evening approached, she flipped on the light and deposited her bag next to her bed. Turning to remove her coat, she saw out of the corner of her eye what she had missed before, a huddled figure, sitting motionless on her bed, head bowed.

"Galinda?" she asked, incredulous. "Shouldn't you be out socialising or curing cancer or whatever it is the rest of you do on Friday nights?"

The girl remained silent, and Elphaba felt a pang of regret at her patronising words. Truth be told, she'd grown fond of Galinda- there was a quiet, almost sensitive side to the girl that she obviously fought very hard to keep under wraps; the part that whimpered in her nightmares and bent to smell the scent of the roses on her bedside table before she fell asleep each night. The loud, glittering, thoughtless girl who Elphaba saw emerge as Galinda left the dorm was so far removed from what Elphaba had learned of her roommate that it was often difficult to connect the two personas. And when she saw her giggling coquettishly and clinging to Fiyero's arm at lunch breaks and in class, her resentment had faded to a strange pity. Abhorred though she was, at least Elphaba had enough courage to be truly herself.

This contempt and disappointment shrunk upon seeing the blonde, her height usually abused as a ploy for playful flirting, now turned against her, showing her as frail and breakable. A sheen of tears had coated her bright eyes and her hair, usually so poised and in place, hung limply at her cheeks. Elphaba wondered vaguely how long she had been sitting there- long enough for the room to have faded into darkness and Galinda to have neglected to move from her quilt to flick the light. Glancing quickly out of one of the windows, she walked to the door and motioned Galinda to follow her. The blonde shook her head and began in a cracking voice, "I can't leave. Look at my hair."

Elphaba almost smiled. At least whatever tragedy that had befallen Galinda was not terrible enough for her to forget her standards. "You look beautiful, as always," she said quickly, trying to eliminate the majority of the sarcasm from her tones. When Galinda neglected to respond, she prompted, "I can call Master Boq in for a second opinion, if that's what you need."

This encouraged a smile from the smaller girl, and she raised herself off of her bed, following Elphaba out of the room and down the hall. Instead of turning right to the exit, as Galinda had expected, Elphaba made a left at the fork in the hallway, leading up a darkened staircase that Galinda had failed to notice even in her month at the school.

"Where are we going?" she asked, purposely lowering her register in an attempt to sound disapproving. It didn't work.

Elphaba shook her head and lifted the musty trap- door at the top of the staircase quietly, revealing a world of oranges and reds atop the school building. Galinda and Elphaba emerged into the wind, cool for the season, and sat side by side on the tin roof. The area was not large, and by no means beautiful, their company was a large water boiler, slowing clicking away as the girls in the rooms below took their evening showers.

Ugly though the roof was, Galinda did not notice as her eyes were already occupied with the view beyond the school. The Emerald City lay before them, but it was as if the green buildings had been set alight in the blaze of sunset- a haze of red-hot, sparkling colours spread across the horizon, a pinprick of sun peeping over the edge, sinking slowly into the clouds, pink against orange.

Galinda looked sideways at Elphaba, speechless, and saw a dark-skinned girl of beauty sitting beside her- for the first time she noted Elphaba's sharp jaw, wide oval eyes, her perfectly arched brows. Then the last of the sun disappeared and Elphaba's skin reverted to its green complexion, but the magic had not seemed to fade.

"Thank you." She murmured softly, embarrassed at her earlier conduct.

"I come up here when I'm upset," Elphaba replied, still facing forward. "I thought it might help you."

Galinda blinked, tears of an entirely new genre stinging her eyes.

"What was upsetting you, anyway?"

Galinda thought of the afternoon, the pain and heartbreak of Fiyero's final parting words; the kiss that hadn't quite reached her toes. A sentence with a thousand meanings broke from Galinda's lips.

"It doesn't matter now."


	3. In Midnights

_In Midnights_

_***_

The Emerald City had been famous for its storms. Huge, ear-cracking thunderstorms, lightning branching like cruel fingers across the sky. Rain would pelt down, loud as the footsteps of a thousand soldiers marching along the streets. The world felt a dark, unsure place when a storm hit, especially on the campus of Shiz University in the dormitories of Cage Hall- already drafty and poorly insulated. Galinda lay petrified in her bed, repeating a mantra of courage to herself- _It's just a storm. Storms cannot hurt you. You're an adult, for Oz's sake. It's just a storm. Storms cannot hurt you. You're an adult, for Oz's sake. _The clock on her bedside table (fingers in the shape of scaly dragons, an eccentric gift from an odd dwarf-like figure Galinda had met once at an outlandish carnival) edged slowly toward midnight. _It's just a storm. Storms-_

"Galinda, I appreciate that nature is very scary to someone as vertically challenged as yourself, but would you mind terribly keeping it down a bit?"

Elphaba's voice sounded muffled, her mouth constricted by pillow. Galinda blushed scarlet in the darkness, unaware that her ranting had been verbal. A loud crack of thunder interrupted the blonde's self-scolding musings, and drew a small gasp from her throat. She pulled her duvet to her chin.

"Are you still awake, Elphie?"

A sigh heaved from Elphaba's side of the dorm. "No."

Galinda watched another minute tick by. "How come you don't get scared?"

Elphaba paused before answering. "I find people much more threatening than storms. People _want_ to hurt you."

Galinda didn't quite know how to respond. She reached for her bedside table and picked up the bristle of fruit that lay scattered there. "Lychee, Elphie?"

"What in Oz's name is a _lychee_?"

Galinda slid out of her bed and padded along the space between their beds. She jumped up onto Elphaba's bed, landing awkwardly on the taller girl's legs.

"Get _off_, you infuriating pest. Waking me in the middle of the night does not give you license to manhandle me."

Galinda rolled her eyes, then remembered that the gesture would be lost on Elphaba in the half-light of the room.

"You're very cantankerous tonight, Elphie."

"Gee, well-spotted."

"Shush, silly green bean. _This_ is a lychee."

She pushed the prickly fruit into the hands of the green girl, who held it up to the light in confusion. "And you _eat_ these?" she questioned, eyebrows raised.

"Not the skin," Galinda laughed, "You've got to peel them."

She broke a lychee from the bunch and tore away the brown shell, revealing the thick, juicy meat of the fruit within. She passed it to Elphaba, who felt it quizzically.

"That's amazing. It looks so different."

Galinda popped a peeled lychee into her own mouth, happy, the terrifying storm already a million miles away in her mind. Elphaba had the strange power to comfort the blonde; she had never felt safer than leaning against the sharp, angular knees of her roommate, sucking on their peculiar midnight snack.

"I've always thought they were a bit like you, really." Galinda stated, peeling another lychee.

"Whatever could you mean?" Elphaba asked, raising her head to eye Galinda's silhouette.

"Well, they're all prickly and sharp on the outside- for protection from the world." She paused. "But inside- they're pure, and white, and vulnerable." Galinda heard Elphaba take a short breath. "And," she finished, "they're sweet."

Another crack of lightning made them both jump out of the sudden awkwardness of the moment, and Galinda crawled in next to Elphaba, who stiffened, then relaxed.

"Five minutes, then back to your own bed."

They fell asleep to the sound of rain on the window, keeping a beat with Elphaba's racing heart.

* * *

R&R? :)


	4. In Cups Of Coffee

A/N: Next two chapters.

* * *

_In Cups Of Coffee_

_***_

Elphaba was deep into her work for Doctor Dillamond. She'd be gone for hours, sometimes entire days, closeted up in that laboratory, fantastic discoveries keeping her alive more than food or drink. She'd return, in the small hours of the morning, eyes ablaze with deep, meaningful things that Galinda could only dream to understand.

She was lonely. It wasn't until Elphaba had ceased to be there in the afternoons; generally cocooned in her world of words, to be sure, but genuinely, solidly _there_; that Galinda realised how much she valued the green girl's presence.

One morning, a hazy Saturday, Elphaba was there when Galinda awoke. A rare occurrence nowadays, one that made Galinda's heart jump into her throat.

"Elphie, you're here." She yawned, stretching across the bed, hiding her smile. There was almost too much relief in her voice- it bordered on desperation.

Elphaba looked over from the mirror, her quick eyes flickering over Galinda, hair tousled, big eyes heavy from sleep. She looked like a doll.

"Not for long. I'm off to meet the boys for coffee. Dillamond's had a breakthrough." Elphaba's eyes shone.

Galinda slumped back onto her bed with a disappointed 'oh'. She pulled the blanket over her head. Elphaba frowned, unable to source the sudden change of mood in her roommate.

"Galinda?" she asked.

A muffled voice answered from below the pink comforter.

"I do wish you were around more, Elphie."

Elphaba opened her mouth slightly, then closed it with something like smugness on her features. It had never occurred to her that Galinda needed her in any degree, and the knowledge that she did made Elphaba smile, guiltily.

"Would you like to join us, Galinda?"

Galinda sat up, a faint blush in her cheeks.

"Oh, no... I would just get in the way. Anyhow, I wouldn't want to spend my morning with those boys. I don't understand how you endure it, Elphie. I'll bet you're in love with one of them." She accused, her face suddenly serious.

Elphaba laughed, gathering her tote. "The day I fall in love with one of them is the day houses rain from the sky." She shook her head. "If you're sure then..."

She stepped out of the dorm, closed the door and waited for a patient few minutes. Sure enough, a voice called from the inside.

"Hold on, Elphie! I've changed my mind!"

Fifteen minutes later, during which Galinda had primped and Elphaba had bemoaned their lateness, the two started down the garden path, Galinda chattering incessantly, and, Elphaba thought, nervously. They reached the coffee shop in Railway Square, and Elphaba grabbed Galinda's arm and drew her aside.

"Galinda, you should know that Boq is still somewhat infatuated with you, and you would do well to assure him of your disinterest." She paused, confusion flitting across her face. "I assume you are disinterested?" There was a sudden bubble of thought in her mind, regarding the apparent eagerness of Galinda's joining them, and her nervous conduct in doing so.

"Oh, yes, that Biq..." she said vaguely. "No. I mean, yes. I'm disinterested."

Elphaba sighed. "All right. Well, I just don't want him melting over the sugar pot when I've important developments to share."

Galinda nodded, and then led the way into the cafe. It smelled heavenly, an oasis of rich aromas- ground, roasted coffee beans, rich tobaccos, perfume and cologne. A table by the window, near the back, was filled by three boys Galinda knew well enough by sight- Boq, Crope and Tibbet, Elphaba's trio of accomplices in her series of misadventures.

"Elphaba! You've finally arrived! We began to think Horrible Morrible had finally realis-" Crope was cut off by Boq elbowing him in the ribs and nodding at Galinda pointedly.

The three stood up. "Miss Elphaba, Miss Galinda." Boq said solemnly, ignoring Crope and Tibbet's twitching mouths.

"Oh, shut up, Boq." Elphaba rolled her eyes and fell into a vacant chair. "Please don't turn this into another of your ill-fated mating rituals. We're here as friends."

The Munchkin blushed to his collar and sat back down. Tibbet slapped him on the back.

"Don't worry, friend, one day you'll get her."

Galinda opened her mouth slightly. "'Get me'? Master Tibbet, I'd appreciate not to be referred to as an _object_- and if I were, I would certainly be out of obtainable reach by someone as..."

"Short?" Crope hazarded.

"...as Master Boq."

Elphaba slammed a stack of papers onto the table, impatience clear in her expression.

"Galinda. Shut up. You two," she looked at Crope and Tibbet, "Shut up." She spread the papers. "Dillamond is in what he hopes is the final stage of research- he needs these books by the end of the week." She handed a list to each boy, and the conversation floated away from Galinda.

Three coffees, two arguments about the value of religion, and one attempt by Boq to capture Galinda's interest later, and the group prepared to leave. As they were gathering their coats, laughing, a waiter approached the table.

"Is there a Miss Galinda Upland here?" he asked.

"Yes, that's me," Galinda answered, her brow contracted with apprehension.

"I've an urgent message for you." He placed a folded sheet of paper in her hands. Elphaba recognised Madame Morrible's watermark.

Galinda read, her eyes growing wider with every line. "No... It's not possible." She fell limply into a chair, covering her face. Elphaba grabbed the letter out of her hand and ran her eyes down the page.

"It's Ama Clutch." She answered the boy's enquiring faces, gravely. "She's very ill."


	5. In Inches, In Miles

_In Inches, In Miles_

_***_

"Tonight, you little idiot, we have no time for sex!" she hisses, my alcohol befuddled brain struggling to object. The cab drives away noisily, filled with our friends- most even drunker than I am, and singing a pagan hymn that shocks the sober pedestrians- and disappears around the bend.

"We're going to the Emerald City."

I let her take my hand and lead us home through the darkness. We're packed in twenty minutes, a sparse single suitcase filled mainly with food and papers she won't let me touch. I cradle a sobering cup of coffee between my thighs, warming them. She moves frantically, angrily, her words an indistinguishable mess of offense. The words 'Morrible', 'murder' and 'Wizard' appear most often, and I search my brain for words to comfort her, but when she's in this state she scares even me.

Running to the station in clothes smelling of smoke and alcohol, she thrusts money at the ticket box and we jump on board, into a compartment that smells of urine and animals. I note this, but she hears nothing but the drum of her own anger. I watch the fields fly past in a sort of daze, vaguely aware that I'm lying on her shoulder, that her hand is in mine, that the man in the seat across is leering. The night creeps into day, and there are more trains to jump, more clocks to check, men trying to sell us things we don't even know the names of and women begging tearfully. She turns them away with apology, grasping their ruddy hands in her own and telling them to keep faith, stay hopeful. They recoil at the sight of her skin.

The climate is unforgivable, like the wrath of a god who has finally given up on his good intentions. There is never enough food, but neither of us complain. We seem beyond such ordinary things as food now- invincible, vulnerable, living off adrenaline, anger, and love. I know, somewhere in the back of my mind, that everything has its end, its consequences, but time and reason seem to stretch when I crouch into her embrace at night, when I feel her hands roaming my body, when she tangles her fingers in my hair, her breath on my neck. She's never there when I wake, always out scavenging for food or settling our fee, or poring, brow constricted, over those papers spilling out of our bag. I find myself hugging her pillow to my face, breathing her in, smothering myself with her. It never seems real.

The train hobbles along and she falls asleep on my shoulder. I know she didn't sleep much the previous night- if at all. Her face seems peaceful in rest, so young. A twitch of agitation flings itself across her cheek; she squeezes her eyes tight and mumbles incoherently. She seems so helpless, a little girl, and this scares me even more than her anger.

We arrive in the city, bedraggled, and three days pass, three days of trying to get an audience with the Wizard. She grows more and more frustrated, and by the time we are blessed with his presence, I see the seeds of anarchy growing in her conduct. She is terrified of his faux-storm, and it's hard to believe that I was the one who had to be comforted when storms swarmed around Shiz. That was Galinda, and I am Glinda now.


	6. In Laughter, In Strife

_A/N: I've not given up on this drabble series! Thank you if you've been sticking with me.

* * *

_

In Laughter, In Strife

Somehow, she isn't entirely sure how they ended up in this position. The roar of the Wizard's plastic beast still rings faintly in her ears, echoes of cruelty and jeering. The last few minutes are burned onto Glinda's brain like a drumming, living tattoo. When the beast went quiet, and the room faded to dark, Glinda and Elphaba were left standing in the wake of what they'd done, silent. Then, just as Glinda considers breaking the ringing silence, Elphaba turns to her.

"We need to leave. Now. We've no way of knowing whether he'll send someone to follow us, and I'd prefer to get a head start if he does."

Something in Elphaba's eyes warns Glinda not to argue. They cross the floor and make their way through the passages that had led them on their ill-fated quest, pushing through door after door and ignoring the questions thrown at them. Angry and impatient though she is, Elphaba keeps pace with a lagging Glinda, holding her hand tightly for guidance. Glinda feels a shiver in Elphaba's palm.

On and on they walk, Glinda stumbling as though blind, Elphaba turning her head away to hide her impatience. The hallways they cross through seemed to grow larger as they walk through them, looming shadows overhead bearing down on them (girls again, no matter how womanly their previous courage may have appeared).

And suddenly there is a burst of sunlight, and Glinda stumbles this time from the unexpected glare. For a moment Elphaba is lost in the green of the exposed city around them.

"Elphie?" Glinda whispers, far too soft to be heard above the meshing racket of travellers and salesmen and the laughter of gallivanting children. She turns quickly on the spot, anxiety like a stone in her stomach, wondering desperately how she had let the hand she was clinging to leave her grasp, searching, searching, when-

"Take this, here, take it- there's no time-"

The voice is at her ear, and despite herself Glinda feels her knees droop slightly, the warmth of a breath she had thought (for a moment, just a foolish, foolish moment) she had lost forever. Elphaba pushes a handful of oily paper bills into her hands, crumpled and stained from the lives they had led before.

"It's not much, but it'll buy you a ticket back to Shiz. I want you to take this cab-" she gestures, and like magic a frowning man in a carriage appears- "and I want you to let it take you as close to the campus as it can. From there you can make your way by rail-"

Glinda stutters, interrupting- "You mean, we will take a cab. We, Elphie, _we_-"

"I can't, Glinda. Not now." She stops, a look of regret Glinda has never seen her wear before twisting her features. The sounds of the city are miraculously muted for a moment, and Elphaba's words are all that Glinda hears. "You know I can't."

Elphaba draws her close in a frantic, awkward sweep of her angular arm, and speaks with her lips buried in Glinda's curls.

"Hold out, my sweet. Hold out, if you can."

And like an alley cat she slips away from the blonde, darting with curious expertise through the moving throng, lost in a minute, though Glinda stands on the tips of her toes, tears streaking her cheeks, willing her eyes to find the slant of a green cheek.

"Hey, lady, are you planning on getting in at any point?"

She ignores the driver, ignores the shoves of the crowd flowing against her like a current, and continues her search, though she feels, already, as though the green girl who's phantom arm she can still feel around her waist is gone forever- and perhaps never existed at all.


	7. In Truths That She Learned

_In Truths That She Learned_

The room, when Glinda returned to it, seemed dead. The hollow wrinkles of strewn sheets lay untouched on cold beds. Empty coffee cups were piled stickily atop each other, some of their white rims dotted with remnants of Glinda's pink lipstick. The air was stale, and the first thing Glinda did was cross the room in three strides and throw open the only window, gasping with relief as the cool air hit her face. She allowed herself a few tears, watched them drip to the tip of her nose and fall, fall, fall onto the stone of the campus courtyard. The school was not yet awake.

She leaned in from the window, lifting her arm to close the pane but finding herself somehow unable to. She was suddenly tired- more than tired, _exhausted_- and she wanted nothing more than to curl into the Elphaba-shaped dent in her roommate's bed. She moved over to the bed, sidestepping books that had flown open and clothes that were balled on the floor in Elphaba's haste to leave (years ago, it seemed, that was _years_ ago now).

The rough silk of Elphaba's sheets were icy against Glinda's skin. The blonde curled into herself, not crying, only breathing deeply, sinking her face into the soft of Elphaba's pillow. She would not fall asleep- she was herself enough to realise what it would look like if she were found cowed in her roommate's bed, gripping her sheets- no, she didn't sleep. She only lay and let the smell and memory of Elphaba swarm in the air around her and fill her up. It was as though she were hungry and desperate for a delicacy that would have to be devoured quickly before it melted or faded away, or was taken by someone else. She felt Elphaba slipping out of her grip even as she lay there clinging to her as fully as she could.

She rolled onto her back and felt a sharp jab in the side of her ribs. Dreamlike, she sat up and ran her fingers over the offending piece of sheet, feeling the pointed four edges of a book hidden beneath the silk. Glinda climbed off the bed and knelt beside it. She slid her arm between the sheet and pulled the book out. It was a notebook covered in brown leather, without a name or explanation along its spine. She let it fall open in her creased lap.

The pages were crowded with slanted script that Glinda immediately recognised as Elphaba's. The inky letters crawled like spiders across the page, hundreds of little notes transferred straight from her roommate's brain. Galinda's breath caught in her throat. This was Elphaba's _journal._ Wide green eyes raced across the first two pages, gulping down the disjointed sentences-

_no difference between cells... D. needs specific sample- collect from? ... Meeting with B. and boys, new books. Must remember to take to lesson. ... Bans are ridiculous! ... Talk with D. re insufferable poetry night- too much, this time, too much. But what to say? ... Nessa arriving, must try to get gift, talk with M. about possible adjoining room..._

The entries were all dated meticulously, but were, to Galinda's dazed mind, indecipherable. There were lists of titles of books and chemicals, short rants and snippets of conversation had with, Galinda assumed, Doctor Dillamond. There were schedules for lessons and dates for assignments that were due. Galinda turned the pages and almost tore them in haste, not knowing what she was looking for until she had failed to find it.

Elphaba did not mention her roommate. Not once did Galinda's name appear in her cursive. There was no account of their being together.

Glinda felt suddenly hollow. The excitement and adrenaline that had pulsed through her upon opening the journal had faded to a feeble throb. She dropped the book onto the floor.

She had no right to be upset, she reasoned. It was preposterous to imagine Elphaba reclined on her bed, writing little notes about Glinda on the thin blue lines of the journal. She had fooled herself into believing that Elphaba thought and cared about her. The blonde ran her fingers through her loose hair, no longer pretending the touch came from another's hand. The green woman was impassioned, yes; but impassioned only for everything else in the world, it seemed. At that moment Glinda hated every name that was not hers reflected in that poisonous little book. She wanted to burn it.

In time with the late rising of the sun, Glinda forced herself off of the still-cold mattress, silently avowing never to waste her thoughts on its previous resident again. She picked up the book a last time, intending to hurl it through the open window, when a loose sheet slipped out from its pages. Glinda saw the date and matched it to the very last day before their trip to the Emerald City. The words were stunted, as though their author had at once steeled herself to write them and resisted the whole time.

_...if this works the way I expect it to- let G. know that it is her I shall miss the most._

Glinda stared blankly at the sheet and then tucked it quietly into her breast pocket. It was not quite enough. No, it was not quite enough to pardon the empty bed behind her and the barren closest that was once full of ugly frocks. It was not quite enough for Elphaba's reprieve- but the truth of those little words would carry Glinda forward- along with a distant echo: _hold out, my sweet. Hold out, if you can._


	8. Or In Times That He Cried

A/N: I'm determined to finish this series. This drabble is set after Nessa's death, but before the cornfield confrontation. Bookverse.

* * *

He was a stooped, crooked old man, with a mop of dark hair; neither brown nor black, it swept his pale forehead in wispy lacklustre and seemed liable to fall out at any minute. His face sagged with the weight of age and something more: grief. His eyes were watery with more than tears, and seemed themselves to be faded, as though a white piece of film had been lowered before them. He wore a dark suit, humble and clean, with a knotted priest's necktie at his throat. Only his jaw line- unbearably sharp, at strange contrast with his weak chin- betrayed his relation to Elphaba.

Glinda sat across from him in a room too large for only the two of them. It was a banquet hall, its grandiose decor suggested outrageous parties and rowdy music, rows of foreign food and laughter; it was ill suited for the grieving preacher. Glinda herself was perfectly in place with the sweeping hall but felt oddly ashamed of her glittering apparel; it was obnoxious in the face of Frex's humility.

She had entered and sat upon a loveseat patterned with roses at the old man's insistence. Now they sat in silence, with Glinda struggling to keep her composure, and to wonder at what she had come to say. Frex stared blankly out of the large window to their left, staring at the stormy sky as though some message from god would appear in it.

"I am truly sorry for your loss." She said quietly, her slim hands shaking slightly as she grasped them in her lap. The priest took his gaze away from the window and turned to her slowly.

"My Nessa was going to do great things, you know. She did great things... They cannot see what she did for them. They only want to make a mess."

As if to prove his point the window beside them was hit by a large rock and cracked down the middle. The two hardly flinched. There were the horrible sounds of brutal elation all around them; cries of celebration at Nessa's death.

"Do you hear what they're calling her? A Witch. My Nessa. Dear, sweet Nessa... Devout beyond all comprehension. Even my own..." He trailed off, tears spilling from his eyes.

Glinda shuffled uneasily in her dress, the unusual sight of a man weeping making her uncomfortable. Frex's grief was so intimate that she felt as though she had entered into his bedroom while he was asleep; she was an intruder, she held power over him.

Glinda was about to stand and make some excuse for her exit, she felt she had already overstayed her short welcome and had, after all, fulfilled her duty (duty? Hadn't this been about saying goodbye to Nessa?); however, as she prepared to move Frex sniffed sharply and wiped his eyes with a yellowed silk handkerchief.

"I wanted to know, from you, Lady Glinda, something..." Glinda froze at the tone of Frex's voice. It was purposeful, even hopeful, in a way that inexplicably made her heart sink.

"Elphaba... I feel as though I should... I know that I haven't been the best father... But in light, in light of this... Where is she?"

These words were so far removed from what Glinda had been expecting that they hit her with the force of something solid. Frex looked at her balefully, his large, aged eyes searching for an answer Glinda knew she could not give. She did not know where Elphaba was. She shook her head slowly and said gently, "No one has heard from Elphaba in years. I'm sorry."

Frex nodded and dropped his gaze from Glinda's, but not before she saw the tiny light that had flared up within them go out.

"I thought... Silly, I suppose... I thought that you might know. If anyone would, it would be you. The way she used to talk about you, ha!" he gave a small, hollow laugh. "Well, I suppose that's all over now, anyway. Thank you for coming."

This was clearly a dismissal, and Glinda took it gratefully. Frex's voice played again and again through her head -_The way she used to talk about you!- _until the words had lost their meaning completely and merely represented a feeling that Glinda thought she had long since forgotten.

Because, though the grieving man may have been right about Elphaba's feelings, he was also correct in saying that it was over. _It's all over now, anyway. _

And it was this, more than anything else, that Glinda mourned.


	9. In Bridges He Burned

A/N: Thank you to the few people who've taken the time to read and review this series. I really appreciate it. _

* * *

___

In Bridges He Burned

Lady Glinda was not one to stoop or slump her shoulders. She did not hunch, or hulk, or clutch to herself. It was adverse to everything she stood for. Her silhouette of power was one that could be seen above the heads of thousands, a perfect profile that one looked to in times on need or disillusionment. In the paintings that lined the smooth plastered walls of the Chuffrey Manor House, her blonde figure was upright and proud, shoulders back and sturdy. It was saddening for Chuffrey to see, then, his wife curled up over a piece of brown writing-paper, her small, bared shoulders open to the breeze that drafted through the open window of her bedroom. Her figure flickered in the candlelight, and the elongated shadow that reached up to the clock on the wall told him that it was nearing 3AM.

He knew what she was writing; or rather, _to whom_ she was writing, and the sight of her curled up and racking with sobs as she wrote very nearly broke him. When he had first stumbled across the letters- so many years ago, already- that were addressed '_My dearest Elphie'_ in curly, school-girlish cursive, he had sat down at that same desk and read them all, back to back, in an afternoon. The words were fascinating to him. The correspondence was so intimate that it was as though Glinda were writing in a diary; the small grievances of the day were studiously recorded (always beginning with- _now Elphie, I know you must be sick of me whining so..._), as well as questions of morality and faith and mortality (where the phrases _I just can't understand_ or _I wish you were here to help_ appeared often). But more than either of those, the things that Glinda's uncertain pen wavered on longest were memories of her time at Shiz (_their time_, he forced himself to concede). It was amazing for him to hear these stories retold, in which a bold and very different Glinda- one with a spirit less crushed, more idealistic- co-starred in a number of frightening adventures centred around this _Elphaba_ person. As the sun dipped lower on the afternoon, he had begun to realise that these letters were not addressed or stamped; they were simply filed into envelopes that held the date and a quickly scrawled name- _Elphaba Thropp_- upon them. They had never been sent; nor did it seem that they ever would.

Chuffrey lingered in the doorway, still watching his devastated wife. He had wondered why some of the letters he had read- and gone back to read, again and again, for they captured his heart in a way that Glinda's non-literary person had never done- were crinkled as though they had at some point been dropped in water. Seeing the silvery tears that cascaded thickly down Glinda's cheeks and onto the page before her, he understood. Closing the door quietly behind him, Chuffrey left her to her writing and went instead to the bed that he alone occupied. His fascination with this _other _Lady Glinda, the one who only appeared in these letters she wrote, had blossomed into what could only be called a love. Despite all her beauty and prestige, their ten-year marriage had been one of mutual affection and tolerance; never _love_. There was none of the passion he saw in Glinda's writing in _their _relationship; even the early lovemaking they had attempted when people still expected them to reproduce was stoic and uncomfortable. That they stayed together was a mystery to all around them, from Chuffrey's heavy politician friends who poked him in the side at lunches and asked whether 'his _lady _was attending to her _wifely duties_ yet', to Glinda's circle of friends who gossiped about the loveless condition of her marriage and the distinct lack of children running pitter-patter around the Chuffrey mansion. But Chuffrey himself knew that they had all misunderstood. Theirs was not a loveless relationship, it was simply a companionship that both had grown comfortable with. They stayed together because after a long day of smiling for cameras and keeping a public face they could come home to each other and be tired and deflated and know that the other did not judge or grow worried at the tiredness under their eyes or the sadness within them. They were more alike than people might suspect; both displaced people who longed for a time other than that in which they lived, each burdened with regret that have cumulated over the years until they struggled to walk beneath them.

Chuffrey heard the creaking of springs as Glinda lay down to rest in the adjoining bed. He opened his pale blue eyes an inch and watched the hazy outline of his wife move beneath her duvet and sigh deeply as she drooped her eyes. In that moment between sleep and wakefulness, he made a decision that was irrevocable and instinctive: he could not stand for another of these late nights, or the tears that Glinda shed. She held up well when her mind was away from this Elphaba. He made a promise to himself that he would put an end to her letter writing. He told himself that it was for the good of Glinda and their marriage, that it was a selfless act that would be done out of nothing but affection. But deeper, beneath these surface reasons, in a place not even Chuffrey himself could reach, there was another reason... Something dark and distasteful, a toxic jealously that _hated _the love that Glinda bestowed upon the faceless stranger (fictional, for all he knew!). It was true that he had come to have real love for his wife, and with that love came all of the usual limitations; the primary one being that he wanted her and her affection all for himself, and if he could not have that then he would at least prevent her from giving it to anyone else.

When Glinda discovered the letters a few days later, curling in infant flames, words lighted and licked by fire before crumbling into dust, she did not cry. She merely looked into the grate of the fireplace and then to the burning eyes of her husband- usually so meek and amiable- and nodded once. Elphaba died, in Glinda's mind, long before her Earthly death. She died not from a bucket of water thrown by a small girl but by the jealous flames of a man. And perhaps (she would concede in the years to come), perhaps that truly was for the better.


End file.
